Stents are insertable medical devices used to maintain openings for fluid flow in areas that might otherwise close, hindering flow. Stents are used to prevent restenosis after Percutaneous Transluminal Catheter Angioplasty (PTCA), presenting outward radial force against a potentially rebounding vessel wall after balloon widening. Stents are also used to hold open inflamed vessel walls that would otherwise be swollen shut, precluding flow. Stents can also be used to hold open surgically made holes for drainage.
Stents are often tubular devices for insertion into tubular vessel regions. Balloon expandable stents require mounting over a balloon, positioning, and inflation of the balloon to expand the stent radially outward. Self-expanding stents expand into place when unconstrained, without requiring assistance from a balloon. A self-expanding stent is biased so as to expand upon release from the delivery catheter.
A vessel having a stenosis may be modeled as an inwardly protruding arcuate addition of hardened material to a cylindrical vessel wall, where the stenosed region presents a somewhat rigid body attached along, and to, the elastic wall. The stenosis presents resistance to any expansion of the vessel in the region bridged by the stenosis. Stenoses vary in composition, for example, in the degree of calcification, and therefore vary in properties as well.
The arcuate geometry of many stenoses present a variation in resistance along the vessel axis to stent outward radial force. Specifically, stenosed vessel resistance is often greatest toward the middle, lessening toward the ends, with a rapid decrease at the start of healthy vessel tissue.
A conventional self-expanding stent optimally has a length greater than the length of the stenosed region to be kept open. Current stents present a substantially uniform outward radial force along their length. Currently, stents do not vary outward radial force to match stenosis geometries or resistances. A constant force stent, with sufficient force to maintain an open channel within a stenosis, has greater force than necessary in the healthy vessel portion lying past the stenosis ends. The stent ends may thus flare outward, protruding into, and possibly irritating non-stenosed tissue.
Stenosis can occur in vessel regions having asymmetric geometry lying on either side of the stenosis. One example of this is the ostium of a coronary artery, having a wide opening toward the aorta, converging into a narrower coronary artery. A conventional stent placed in the ostium would provide substantially uniform outward force over a non-uniform vessel diameter. If this force is properly matched for the narrower vessel opening, it is likely less than optimal for the wider region.
What would be desirable, and has not heretofore been provided, is a stent capable of providing sufficient force to keep a vessel open within a rebounding stenosis, while providing only necessary force against healthy, non-stenosed vessel regions. What also has not been provided is a stent providing necessary, but only necessary force along a stenosis in a vessel region having non-uniform vessel diameter on either side of the stenosis.